Splitting an ethernet signal?

[spirez]

Right, my lovelies. Some of you may have seen the thread i made the other day about networking over the mains. Well i've had another thought as i found an old netgear router laying around the house so can i do the following?

I have a BT homehub downstairs that currently runs to my dad's computer and mine. There are no more hardwired connections availalbe.

Would i be able to run the cable that plugs into my PC, into my netgear router and then from the netgear into the PC and the xbox?

The netgear router has 4 LAN ports and one ADSL port. I'm guessing i'd have to run the first cable into the ADSL port and then the outputs to the PC and xbox come from the LAN ports?

The connection types are different, ADSL appears to be smaller. Would this be the same as the port on the back of my PC?

Cheers

 

[McBunny]

you could but just buy a switch netgear 8 port switch is about £20

 

[Rob Clark]

yes. id reccomend connecting to the netgear router and disabling the dhcp server to as you would have 2 running with one (the netgear) giving out duff info. You may also need a crossover cat5 cable (or an adapter) as going hub to hub isnt always supported on basic routers, not expensive !
but yes you can do what you are asking

 

[spirez]

you could but just buy a switch netgear 8 port switch is about £20

Look like a good alternative, cheers.

So i take it you just switch manually between the connections you want to use on the unit?

Would this one do? I wouldn;t need any more than 3 ports: xbox, ps3, pc.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Netgear-FS605...ameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

Or should i get a gigabit one such as the gs605? Bearing in mind it's mainly for xbox live, rather than data sharing.

 

[f0xy]

fully automatic all 8 can talk to each other etc....no manual switching

 

[spirez]

fully automatic all 8 can talk to each other etc....no manual switching

Cool.

Does that mean that if i have the PC and xbox on the signal would be diluted and laggy, but if i turned the pc off it would run faster?

 

[Rob Clark]

no you wouldnt notice unless you were hammering the connection between 2 pc's. You dont manually 'switch' connections. Its just a term which means a switch is better than a hub as a swicth is intellegent and looks at packets and only sends them to the destination on the connected ports. whereas a hub just sends all packets to all ports.
Your other router will be fine unless you want something new
Absolutel no need for a gigabit hub/switch as is overkill for xbox which doesnt have a gigabit nic anyway

 

[McBunny]

id use a stand alone switch if i was you and sell the router unless you want to use the firewall ability of your router if it has one chances are you will have more problems with it than just a plain old switch

 

[spirez]

lol, what's a nic?

Well i'm gonna go for this one i think.

That's all i'm gonna need right? As well as an extra cable?

Need to buy a hard drive from there anyway.

May as well sell the router. They're still going for £65 without the usb adapter so should get at least £50 back.